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2024 Posts

Book review: Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, by Niall Ferguson

posted: November 3, 2024

tl;dr: A broad ranging historical survey of natural and man-made disasters...

Marx, Engels et al versus free speech

posted: October 13, 2024

tl;dr: Be extremely wary of anyone who wants to put limits on speech...

Book review: The Herd: How Sweden Chose its Own Path Through the Worst Pandemic in 100 Years, by Johan Anderberg

posted: October 5, 2024

tl;dr: What happens in a pandemic when you actually follow the science...

Locked out! part two

posted: September 26, 2024

tl;dr: Security systems themselves can cause outages, when they malfunction...

Locked out!

posted: September 22, 2024

tl;dr: Increased security comes at a price of decreased productivity...

My journey to become a Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Administrator

posted: September 7, 2024

tl;dr: Using sample tests to direct my studying is what worked for me...

5,000 mile review: 2023 Harley-Davidson CVO Road Glide motorcycle

posted: August 31, 2024

tl;dr: The perfect motorcycle for the Cannonball Run...

Book review: The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, ed. by Lauren Groff

posted: August 17, 2024

tl;dr: A fine selection of stories from around the world, for readers looking to expand their horizons...

Book review: Blue Lunch, by Leslie C. Stevens

posted: August 3, 2024

tl;dr: A decent debut pulp science fiction book, assuming you like the characters...

Why we’re getting stupider

posted: July 26, 2024

tl;dr: Old man yells at cloud...

A look back at Easy Rider

posted: July 18, 2024

tl;dr: Watching Easy Rider today is like opening a time capsule...

Great motorcycle roads: Cape Royal Road at the North Rim of Grand Canyon

posted: July 13, 2024

tl;dr: How often do you find a great motorcycle road with views of one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World?...

Movie review: The Bikeriders

posted: July 6, 2024

tl;dr: An unflinching look at how a gang forms, grows, and evolves, not always for the better...

A fortunate series of events leading to my new Harley

posted: June 22, 2024

tl;dr: How being in H.O.G. helped me buy a 2023 CVO Road Glide...

Book review: The Best American Essays 2022, ed. by Alexander Chee

posted: June 16, 2024

tl;dr: An above-average essay anthology for both quality and quantity...

Not everything can be fixed

posted: June 8, 2024

tl;dr: The reasons that some products just cannot be repaired, no matter what...

Why your refrigerator won’t tell you the temperature

posted: June 2, 2024

tl;dr: You might think your refrigerator’s top priority is keeping your food at the desired temperature, but it isn’t...

Performance review: David Sedaris at the Orpheum Theater in Phoenix, May 10, 2024

posted: May 25, 2024

tl;dr: A pleasant evening of Sedaris reading Sedaris while the audience laughs and sometimes cries along...

Parsing Francis Collins’s comments on what happened in D.C.

posted: May 4, 2024

tl;dr: Collins openly states the main error made in the U.S. government’s pandemic response...

Dodging the cold at Big Sky

posted: April 28, 2024

tl;dr: It’s going to take an awful lot of global warming to turn Montana into the next Colorado...

A 20th century biker rides a 21st century bike

posted: April 20, 2024

tl;dr: First and foremost a motorcycle should be fun, and the e-motorcycle I rode certainly was...

Book review: Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams at the Edge of Death Valley, by Brent Underwood

posted: April 13, 2024

tl;dr: Fans of the YouTube channel will enjoy the stories, revelations, and confessions in this book...

Performance review: George Thorogood and the Destroyers at WestWorld of Scottsdale, April 5, 2024

posted: April 6, 2024

tl;dr: Definitely still rocking after fifty years...

Forty year lookback at my Commodore 64, part two

posted: March 23, 2024

tl;dr: What I did with my Commodore 64...

Forty year lookback at my Commodore 64, part one

posted: March 23, 2024

tl;dr: I have a hard time remembering my second computer, but I will never forget my first...

In praise of landfills

posted: March 16, 2024

tl;dr: If you don’t like landfills, try living without them...

Book review: The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

posted: March 10, 2024

tl;dr: A detailed look at the U.S.’s bioweapons programs and how they led to the COVID-19 pandemic...

The smartphone will help you rent your home now

posted: February 18, 2024

tl;dr: With some prep and perseverance, you can rent a home with your phone...

The perfect number of resources

posted: February 11, 2024

tl;dr: Zero, one, and infinity are the only perfect numbers for resources...

Avoiding overkill

posted: January 30, 2024

tl;dr: There’s a downside to doing more than is necessary...

Book review: Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, by Zeke Faux

posted: January 27, 2024

tl;dr: A series of vignettes to remind us of the excesses and inanities of the cryptocurrency boom of 2020-2022...

Book review: The Best American Short Stories 2022, ed. by Andrew Sean Greer

posted: January 20, 2024

tl;dr: A healthy dose of fantasy makes this an above average anthology of short stories...

Movie review: Pluto

posted: January 7, 2024

tl;dr: An eight hour-long futuristic anime that addresses one of the major themes from Blade Runner...

The #OriginOfCovid raccoon dog that did not bark

posted: January 6, 2024

tl;dr: If B necessarily follows A, and B is not observed, then we can conclude something about A...